


The Tears of Men and Gods

by SeleneJessabelle12626



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf Clint Barton, Enough to get the relationship tag, Post-Avengers (2012), Sort Of, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Stucky - Freeform, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-06-19 20:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15517614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeleneJessabelle12626/pseuds/SeleneJessabelle12626
Summary: When extraterrestrials fall from the sky, SHIELD dispatches two teams. One comprised of five individuals personally chosen by Director Fury himself known as the Avengers initiative and the other a pair of covert agents, known only to a few of the highest ranking security officials of the government, The Winter Soldiers; Asset designation Alpha and Asset designation Beta.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What's this? Selene? Alive? That's right lovelies I am back with a hell of a fic for you all. 
> 
> This is going to be much different from the fluffiness that was Musings. This is my attempt to write (and finish) a story with a complete and interconnected plot because who knows when the last time I did that was. This is probably going to get somewhat dark at times and I will update the tags as things come up. 
> 
> One major disclaimer:
> 
> Do not expect the same frequency of updates as Musings. This is a much different beast to tackle and I no longer have all the free time I had. I will update as I can but in my effort to provide longer chapters, there will be less frequency to updates. 
> 
> With that all said, I hope everyone enjoys The Tears of Men and Gods

When extraterrestrials fall from the sky, SHIELD dispatches two teams. One comprised of five individuals personally chosen by Director Fury himself known as the Avengers initiative and the other a pair of covert agents, known only to a few of the highest ranking security officials of the government, The Winter Soldiers; Asset designation Alpha and Asset designation Beta.

They arrived together in the back of an armored SUV, two blocks from the location of the disruption. The Assets exchanged a moment of clinical sentiment, foreheads pressed together and fingers entwined in intimacy, but expressions blank. Their handler scoffed in disgust from across the car but allowed it; well aware that the Assets were stronger and worked more effectively when deployed together and allowed to interact as they pleased.

The handler gave Alpha a tool to remove the electrostatic dampener on Beta’s robotic arm while another agent removed a gleaming, concave silver disk from a large case and handed it to Beta to give to Alpha. The current owner of the Assets at SHIELD did not understand the point of the ritual but the handler, who had been their handler for a number of years under several owners, insisted it was important for Asset compliance. They behaved more predictably and effectively when they were allowed to arm each other, even if it was just an illusion.

The current owner, a man named Pierce, had only wanted to purchase Alpha but the previous owners had insisted. Apart the Assets were erratic and highly dangerous and only possible to control with excessive force that damaged them far outside acceptable mission parameters. In every attempt to utilize them separately, they had still recalled the other despite the memory wipes and would seek each other out. In one memorable catastrophic case, Beta had managed to get into the room where Alpha was contained in cryosleep and begun the defrost sequence before they managed to subdue him. They had stopped trying to give them missions apart since that incident.

They did have separate objectives for this mission though. However it was the closest they every got to being apart nowadays.

 ~

 Alpha arrives at the safe house two full hours before the scheduled rendezvous, objective completed. Beta hasn’t yet arrived but he thinks little of it, he had two more hours before he was late. Beta had plenty of time. Alpha wipes his face of grime and alien blood with a damp cloth and finds a ration bar, eating it quickly before sitting at the table and settling in to wait.

An hour passes, then two, then three and no sign of Beta. The mission required he, they wait in the safe house until extraction. If Beta does not arrive by extraction the following evening it will be considered a failure no matter how perfectly Alpha completed his objective. More importantly, the longer it took Beta, the higher the chances that he was damaged or otherwise unable to get to the safe house. Alpha would not allow Beta to become damaged. He stood from the chair and slips an extra handgun in his belt and checks that his knives are in their proper places before using his toe to flip the silver shield from the ground to his hand. He leaves the safe house exactly as he had found it, as if he had never been there at all.

 ~

Asset designation Beta wakes up in a room with walls so bright he squints and shies away. It takes him a moment to get used to but when he does he realizes quickly that he has been captured. His objective had been failed and he is unsure of Alpha’s current location or status. He stands slowly, feet bare and dressed only in a set of hospital scrubs. The servos in his arm whir and he realizes he has use of it. Even the handlers deactivated it with tech designed especially for him when it was not needed. His captors must not have equivalent tech or they underestimate him. He is not bound or restrained in anyway, another mistake. The captors must truly be unaware of what they are dealing with. He is confident that he can escape and make it to the safe house before the scheduled rendezvous.

The walls of the room seem flat and identical at first glance. He chooses a wall at random and begins to trace the palm of his robotic hand along it. The sensors activate in an instant, drinking up all the information they can. Three of the walls hold nothing for him, truly just flat and featureless slabs of white material. _Quartzite polycarbonate_ his sensors guess but it is not a certainty. But the final wall, its material is far different, a glass-like material disguised to match the other walls and disorient him. He allows himself a smirk as he finds the barely there seam of the entrance. It is far too small an opening for him to fit his fingers in but that doesn’t stop him from trying anyway. As he tries to jam his fingers into the seam he swears he hears the shuffle of movement from the other side.

~

“So what are we dealing with and how did it break into my Tower?” Tony Stark asked, a faint blue glow coming from his chest, despite the way his arms were crossed over it. He and the rest of the members of their new ragtag group of heroes aside from the Asgardian, Thor, stood before the cell in the lowest sub-basement of SHIELD’s New York headquarters, battered and bruised but still standing, somehow.

 Fury looked to Romanov, whose eyes had not left the man that was unconscious in the cell. She chewed at her lip thoughtfully for a moment and Stark turned to her, mouth open and ready to demand answers to anything after the hell of a day they’d had but she beat him to it. “Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe they exist. A pair of assassins credited with nearly fifty confirmed kills between them and a hell of a lot more that are credited to them. They call them The Winter Soldiers. They’re ghosts. Brutally efficient but no trace or evidence or witnesses left behind after a kill. I had a run in with this one back when I first joined SHIELD.”

“That’s the guy that?” Clint interrupted in astonishment, glancing at her hip but trailing off when Natasha looked at him pointedly.

“You said pair.” Bruce said quietly. “Does that mean there is another one who was trying to get to the Tesseract?”

“I don’t know much about the other one besides that they are unwaveringly loyal to each other and only each other.” She turned to look at Fury. “If I were you, I would up the security in the entire building. The other Soldier is probably on his way.”

~

Alpha makes it to SHIELD sub-basement level three before the elevator halts. So far it had taken him; three lifted access badges, four passcodes and the fingerprints off a man who was dead in a supply closet eight floors up and down three fingers.

 _“Voice recognition requested”_ The elevator spoke and Alpha frowned. He hadn’t prepared for a voice print scan. He thought he’d come up with every type of code requirement, having been forced to take the direct and far more risky way to the level where Beta was being held after realizing there were no vents or access corridors to sneak through in a building like this. He was even prepared for a retinal scan, courtesy of another man who had arrived in the elevator with the man who had donated his fingers. He could likely climb or fall the rest of the way down the shaft but for once his bulk and strength inhibited him and his wide shoulders were too large to fit through the emergency hatch in the ceiling. The walls of the elevator were glass and he could probably cut or break through them but it wouldn’t do much good considering the solid material of the shaft was mere inches past the glass, not enough for him to squeeze through.

He glanced at one of the badges he had lifted, ignoring the red half-moons in his palm from where his nails had dug in enough to draw blood. His head was starting to hurt, a faint ache at the very back. Beta was likely experiencing the same pain. If this had been a normal mission, they would have been together right now. Curled up against one another on the couch or bed or floor of the safe house, whispering about the fragments of memory that welled up the longer they spent without a wipe. A particularly long mission had once given both of them the chance to remember their names but the names themselves had been wiped away though the distinct feeling of knowing stayed behind.

Alpha paced the elevator, ignoring the slight stickiness of blood under his boots. He needed to get to Beta. Needed to see that Beta was alive. Together they could escape and burn this place from the inside out. The handlers wouldn’t punish them so badly for a failed mission if they could destroy the ones who managed to capture Beta.

“ _Voice recognition requested”_ The elevator reminded him.

“I know!” Alpha snapped, expecting the machine to deny him but instead the elevator began to descend again.

“ _Captain Steven Grant Rogers voice print accepted.”_

Alpha fell to his knees with a cry from the sharp pain that stabbed into his head from the hazy repetition of the name in his memories and did not notice the elevator begin to fill with gas until he was little more than an almost unconscious heap on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If all the tears of men and gods pooled, the oceans would be twice as deep" 
> 
> -Spirit_Dianite (Mianite season 2)


	2. Chapter 2

“Someone is on their way down.” One of the techs said, fingers tapping and flying across the security screens. A tap pulled up the video feed of a blonde man of similar build to the other Soldier, clutching his head and gasping for breath on his hands and knees. On the ground next to him a convex disc of metal, etched with lines and a star. Another tap filled the elevator with a gas strong enough to knock out anyone up to The Hulk.

“He got that far without being detected?” Stark asked, looking to Fury. “What kinda intelligence agency are you running here? Also does anyone else think that metal thing looks familiar?”

Fury glared at Stark for a moment before looking to another tech “Prepare cell 3 for prisoner.”

When the elevator doors slid open, eight different weapons are trained on the soldier. He is still conscious, but just barely, eyes blinking slowly and blearily up at them, pupils blown wide. He tries to reach for the disc and Natasha fires a tranquilizer dart into his neck.

The other soldier is awake by the time they get his partner into his cell. The Avengers watch warily as he takes stock of his surroundings and begins to run his metal hand along the walls as if searching for something. They hold their breath and draw their weapons when he pauses at the exact place the door is, though they all know it is disguised on the other side of the wall.

From their side, the wall is one large panel of clear material with a door set in the middle of it, sealed electronically from the control room. They know from his side the walls all look blank but that doesn’t stop him from not only finding the door but also trying to squeeze his fingers into the edges around it. He is unable to open it but they also did not miss the small smirk that played on his features when he discovered the door.

Eventually he settles in the middle of the room, eyes fixed on the door, and they relax a little. He may be trying to plan an escape but it at least seems like it won’t be tonight.

“Blondie helped us out with the invasion.” Stark eventually points out, though he’s well aware that Natasha and Barton, the damn super-spies, had probably already figured it out a while ago. “Why would an assassin help us out? Or better question, who would pay an assassin to help us out?”

Fury reentered the room, hands clasped behind his back and an almost sad expression on his face. Stark opens his mouth to speak but once again Natasha interrupts him. “Who are they Nick?” She asks quietly but confidently, she knows that he knows the answer.

He lets out a deep sigh. “What do you remember of your World War Two history?” Every face in the room looks to him in confusion except Tony, whose expression fell as he realized why that damn shield had looked familiar when the guy had helped them earlier that day.

“You can’t be serious? You want me to believe that that man is the man who my dad practically worshipped? That man is Steve Rogers, Captain Fucking America?” Stark asked incredulously.

The rest of the room caught up with what Fury was implying. “Security and the labs confirmed it. The shield is Vibranium, the only one made in history and the voice recognition allowed access to one Steven Grant Rogers, a voice print input by Howard Stark and Margaret Carter with the foundation of SHIELD. It’s him.”

“Then who’s the other guy?” Barton asked, looking to the dark-haired man.

“James Barnes, Rogers closest friend. Both were pronounced missing in action and later killed in action when they never returned from a mission in the Alps. They were probably captured by HYDRA and reprogrammed. I know for a fact the Red Room took its lessons directly from HYDRA ideas and experiments. There are mentions of Assets in files dating all the way back to 1946. ” Natasha said, a dejected sigh leaving her lips.

“So we’ve got two ex-war heroes forced by Nazis to become master assassins. Part of me wishes it were as simple as aliens again. At least that was as easy as point and shoot.” Stark commented, rubbing his face.

~ 

Rogers stirs and wakes suddenly, on his feet far sooner than Barnes had been. He follows a similar procedure as his counter-part. Taking stock of himself and the room, he passes over the front wall twice before realizing it was different from the others. Then again he doesn’t have a fancy robot hand that likely has all sorts of gadgets and sensors. He finds the door and punches it once rather than trying to pull it open. The material shudders slightly from the force but does not budge. He looks at his fist thoughtfully and punches again, harder this time and the sound echoes through the observation room. He kicks on both sides as if trying to break the spot where hinges would be, but while Barton nocks an arrow cautiously, the door holds firm. That seems to solidify in Roger’s mind that he can’t break down the door no matter how hard he hits it so he steps away and begins to pace.

They observe both Soldiers for the rest of the night, taking shifts so that they get chances to eat and sleep. Natasha stays through everyone’s shift but Barton’s, switching places with him in the elevator when he arrives, despite the concerned look he gives her. She steps into the elevator with Tony as he is going down several hours later, having changed clothes and cleaned up. Neither of them makes small talk and fall into one of the chairs in the observation room when they arrive, settling in for the next few hours.

Rogers spends the night pacing his cell like a caged predator, all graceful vicious steps and tensed muscles. It’s not hard to picture him as a tiger in a cage rather than a brainwashed assassin in a cell. Barnes on the other hand remains completely still in the middle of his cell, but he too looks ready to move at any moment. If Rogers is a tiger, Barnes is a snake, muscles coiled and ready to strike at the slightest hint of movement.

Rogers paces and paces and paces through the night. Showing no sign of tiring but his expression changes with each passing hour, growing ever so slowly into a sharp-toothed smirk. He stops his pacing around 5 am and stares directly at the wall separating the two cells, approaching in three deliberate steps. He places his palm flat to the wall and in a calm clear Russian says, “Asset designation Beta, report.” It takes Tony a second to realize JARVIS is automatically translating for him and that Rogers isn’t speaking English.

Barnes’ head flicks to the wall and he’s on his feet in a flash. Stark’s thoughts get as far as ‘Shit, he can talk to Barnes’ when Rogers repeats himself. Barnes looks around the cell as if confused and disoriented, the plates of his arm whirring and shifting before he settles back down in the middle as if nothing had happened. “Beta, report.” Rogers repeats again. His expression curls into a snarl as he smacks the wall with the flat of his palm and snaps “Beta, report!” He rests his forehead against the wall after that and repeats the command over and over, voice soft and pleading. Tony isn’t sure if it’s the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen or the most heart wrenching.


	3. Chapter 3

_Agent Natasha Romanov_ , _Traitor to Russia, Codename: Black Widow_ Alpha’s mind supplies when the redhead steps into his cell several hours after the small breakdown in his programming. He was getting sloppy due to desperation to see Beta if he did not notice when the door to the cell opened until it was already closing. Alpha plastered on his best saccharine smile, the one that usually had civilians spilling their deepest secrets and fears to him and turns to her.

“I fear there’s been a misunder…”

His entire being seizes up against his will when she snaps “ _Winter Soldier Report!”_ in flawless Russian, interrupting his attempt by speaking to his programming.

 _“Asset designation Alpha mission success, designation Beta unknown, presumed failure due to capture, location unknown. Asset status”_ He clenches his jaw shut and bites down on the words hard enough that the metallic tang of blood flows into his mouth from his tongue. Alpha takes a moment to collect himself and gave a disappointed sigh.

 _“This is not how I planned for this encounter to occur Agent Romanov.”_ He says, eyes closed and head shaking in disapproval. _“You should not have done that.”_ He continued, looking up at her, eyes searching for a weak point. She seems unarmed at first glance until he saw the thick bands around her wrists, the so-called Widow’s Bite’s. If he rushed her, he could likely snap her neck before she could strike.

“Captain Rogers, my name is Natasha Romanov. I work for SHIELD. We hope to use the intel you possess to help you. My superiors think you won’t cooperate. I think I can give you the incentive to.” She speaks confidently and clearly, one arm leveled at him as though prepared to attack.

Alpha tilts his head curiously; intrigued by what she thinks she can do or say that will make him betray the handlers. ‘I’m listening until I decide to kill you’ the movement says.

She gets as far as “Designation Beta is” before he loses himself and all he can think is ‘ _Beta’ ‘Beta’ ‘Must find Beta’_ She snaps his name again, drawing him back to attention. “I can arrange for you to see him if you agree to cooperate and answer our questions.” She continues and part of him feels like she is repeating herself but all he can think and feel is his burning need to see that Beta is safe.

He looks at her for a long second, weighing the options presented to him. Questions meant secrets, mission vital secrets, but then again he likely did not know many of the answers they wanted between the mind-wipes and the secrecy of HYDRA itself. Alpha had always been bad at lying, it was just something he could not excel in no matter how much training was forced onto him so as a result anything vital that could be considered sensitive would be entrusted to Beta rather than Alpha. If he at least went along with the interrogation they would let him see Beta. Once he knew Beta was unharmed, or at least mostly operational, they could plan their escape.

Alpha allowed his muscles to relax from their tense battle-ready stance and for the words “ _Ready to comply”_ to spill from his lips. 

~

They interrogate him. Put him in a room with three concrete walls and a one way mirror, shackling him to a bolted down table in the center as if the chains or bolts would make any difference if he wanted to escape or fight. His interrogator is a man in his mid-30s, all cocky swagger and pride for being the one to get to work on such a high-profile prisoner. Romanov comes in with him to act as translator if Alpha decides he doesn’t want to speak English, which he doesn’t, she has no sidearm despite the danger, a smart move considering he could get to them in two and a half moves, faster than she could draw them if she tried.

“What is your name?” The man asked, filling out lines in sheets of paperwork.

 _“Winter Soldier, Designation Alpha”_ The Asset replied, no hint of cleverness in his voice. Romanov translated verbatim and the interrogator paused in his note-taking and looked at Romanov again, as if it was a mistake she had made.

“I said your name, not your designation.” The man repeated and Alpha looked at him with a cold blue stare.

 _“Designation Alpha”_ He said calmly and as Romanov spoke the man frowned. He looked at her in disbelief, anger even.

She schooled her expression carefully, her face neutral as she said, “You read the briefing. You knew what to expect.”

For a while he plays nice, answering the questions to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, the best of his ability also meant that there were a great many questions that he did not know the answers to. His answers became one of two things: the truth, or “ _Unknown”_ , he did attempt to lie several times about what was truly unknown. Twice Romanov caught him, narrowing her eyes and mentioning Beta before even translating his attempted lie.

“In the cell you mentioned being successful in your mission, what was your mission?”

“ _To assist the individuals codenamed The Avengers in their protection of the City.”_

Romanov hesitated slightly before translating, the Man looking up in surprise and anger. “The Avengers Initiative was a confidential project until they were deployed. There is no way anyone outside of SHIELD could have known about it. Who do you work for?”

“ _Unknown”_ Alpha said simply. Another lie but not a complete one. Technically they didn’t ‘Work’ for anyone. They were weapons owned by HYDRA, weapons did not work, and they were not employed or getting compensated for their skills. They were tools to be pointed and fired and then put away until the next use.

“Impossible.” The man stated with a near snarl. “How could you not know who you work for?”

“ _The Handlers are given the Mission, the Assets do not interact with the Owner.”_ He said and perhaps it was saying too much, Romanov met his eyes with something that looked almost like pity. Yet she translated, turning the Russian to English and his explanation into something the interrogator would understand.

The interrogator frowned and asked “Fine then, who is your Handler?”

Alpha looked at him thoughtfully, the current handler had been with them for years and through several cryofreezes and several owners. He wasn’t the kindest handler they’d had, that had been the deceptively kind man who had treated them like house pets to be touched and pet and rewarded with affection. Until failure of course, then he’d been more brutal with punishment than any handler they could remember. The current handler was efficient and knew how they worked best and let them do things as they pleased within reason. Alpha might even say he liked the current handler.

 _“Aleksander Lukin.”_ Alpha eventually said, no hint of remorse for the former owner who had sold them to HYDRA in the first place. It might even give SHIELD a lead to follow to keep them busy while he formulated an escape plan with Beta.

Romanov’s eyes narrow infinitesimally, she recognized the name. She turned to the interrogator and said, “That’s enough for now. I’ll get to work looking into Lukin and how he might have known about the initiative.” She speaks in rapid English, as though she’s forgotten that Alpha even speaks it because he chooses to use Russian. A sloppy mistake. Except the look she gives him makes him think it was not a mistake at all, that it was perhaps her intention to let him know the next steps.

 _“Beta.”_ Alpha says simply, his request to have the other end of the bargain held up clear from the single word.

She nods and once the guards come in and his shackles are removed, leads the party back to his cell.

~

Beta blinks when the panel he’d found earlier slides open and a humanoid robot in red and gold steps in. “ _Iron Man”_ His mind supplies from the data given in the briefing for the mission. “ _Antony Edward Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, current leader of The Avengers.”_ His inner musings of Stark’s weaknesses are interrupted when the faceplate of the suit pops open to reveal Stark’s face.

“So, not really sure why I’m in here ‘stead of Romanov but she asked and she seems to be the authority on the bad guys who messed with you and Cap’s heads so here I am. Let’s have a chat Barnes.”

 _“Where is Alpha?”_ He asks calmly in Russian, wondering if his metal arm was stronger than the metal encasing Stark.

“C’mon man, I’m not Romanov, it’ll be way faster if you just drop the Soviet thing and speak English.”  
  
Beta narrowed his eyes but decided his desire for information about Alpha was greater than his orders not to speak English. “Where is Alpha?” He repeated and Stark smiled.

“See, that’s not so hard. But by Alpha you mean the other soldier who showed up? Blonde guy, muscular, looks like he could kill me with a glance? Steve Rogers? Captain America?”

Beta felt his eyebrows furrow, something about that name, Steve Rogers, sounded familiar. He pushed it from his mind, must have been a past cover Alpha had used.

“Yeah sound familiar? Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, best friends since they met on the schoolyard? Captain America and his Howling Commandos?” Stark said, powering on.

Beta looked away and frowned at the way the nagging pain in his head was becoming a pulsating ache. It’d been getting worse since he’d woken up here, usually speaking with Alpha alleviated some of the pain, more so when they tried to piece together the fragments of memory that began to appear the longer they went without a wipe.

“Where is Alpha?” He repeated slowly, looking back at Stark with the most intense glare he could manage. Stark even took a small step back and his fingers twitched, the metal joints clicking together whisper quiet.

“Here’s the deal. We can’t let you guys in together, that’s pretty much guaranteed to end poorly for everyone involved.” Beta stood up and Stark took another step back “But, if you’d let me finish Terminator, we can let you see each other with a video feed. If you cooperate. Rogers has already agreed to answer some of SHIELD’s questions, they’d like you to do the same. Once that’s sorted, you two can see each other all you’d like. Understand?”

Beta looks at him critically for a long moment, if he moved fast he could probably pry Stark out of his suit like a sardine from a can before Stark could react. But that would likely mean he would be detained further and definitely wouldn’t get to see Alpha, even if it was just a video feed.

He let his muscles relax to compliance as he’d been trained to do, the servos in his arm whirring as they reset to baseline instead of offensive mode. He didn’t speak his consent but gave a small nod.

“Great, knew you’d listen to reason. Now I’ll get a team in here and we can get started so you can see your boo.”

~  
  
Alexander Pierce looked up from his computer when his secondary cell phone began to ring. There was a very short list of people who had the number and an even shorter list of people who knew better than to call unless there was a situation that actually required his attention. So generally, the likelihood that he was needed was good when it rang, unfortunately there were no desirable situations that warranted his attention.

“Yes?” He answered after a moment to prepare himself for the bad news, whatever it may be.

“Sir, the Assets were not at the safe house.” The man on the other end spoke quickly.

Pierce let out a sigh and a frown, putting his fingers to his furrowed eyebrows. “Get Petrov on the case, they’re his damn attack dogs. I want them found in the next 24 hours. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He arrives at the HYDRA base under an old warehouse by the shipping docks. It’s dingy and old; everything rusted and covered in a layer of grime except for the machines currently being used by this operation. It’s a far cry from the Washington Headquarters. “What have you found?” he asks without preamble as he enters. The eyes in the room turn to him, some fearful others unsure.

It is the Handler that had come with the Assets, Ivan Petrov, who speaks up. He’s an older man, approaching his late 60s but of the last four Handlers, he had worked with the Assets for the longest period of time. He doesn’t fear Pierce as many of the other HYDRA men do. He is confident in his knowledge and experience, a helpful trait but also dangerous. He knows everything there is to know about the Assets and the Winter Soldier program, likely including things that aren’t in the files Pierce had been given.

“Scans from Alpha’s sub-dermal tracker show that he entered the safehouse as planned and spent several hours there, but when Beta did not arrive…” He trailed off as if the rest was self-explanatory.

Pierce looked at him expectantly, not wiling to admit he didn’t fill in the blank like Petrov did.

The Russian man looked somewhat surprised but continued “When Beta did not arrive, Alpha likely began to grow worried and went after him. It has happened before when one or the other is injured. They are like magnets, pulled to each other”

“I don’t care.” Pierce interrupted. “Where is he now?” He asked the room.

“Traffic cameras picked him up two blocks south of the SHIELD New York headquarters, we assume the Avengers managed to capture the other Asset and that was where Asset Alpha was headed. The subdermal trackers implanted in both Assets lost functionality somewhere around that area, again we assume SHIELD is the cause.” A random agent reported, eyes not leaving his screen.

Pierce let out a sigh and a small nod, turning towards the group of armed men that had entered with him. “Give Fury two days to try and get something out of them, then launch a retrieval.” This seemed to satisfy Petrov and the other agents well enough as they all turned away from Pierce to get back to work.

As Rumlow and his team led the way out of the warehouse and back to Pierce’s helicopter, Pierce said, “Don’t bother trying to get Barnes. Rogers is the only one of value to me.”

“Yes sir.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I didn’t get much from Barnes.” Tony said with a sigh when he and Natasha met back up in the observation room. “We don’t think he was lying, just being selectively truthful so we can’t fault him. You might be able to get something else, but we couldn’t.”

“I think we got enough from Rogers. He gave us a name, it’s being looked into. But for now they cooperated so we have to hold up our end of the bargain.” She said, nodding to the tech in the room.

A few button presses turned the faux glass wall in each cell to a live video feed to the other and the reaction was instantaneous. Both Soldiers were on their feet and speaking though there was no audio to the feed. They realized after a moment and the change from verbal communication to silent was smooth and flawless. Natasha blinked, she knew American Sign Language because of Clint and some Russia Sign on the principle of being Russian, but this was something different, comprised of both those things and more.

It was like their whole bodies were used to speak, hands and fingers and eyebrows and lips all moving and twitching and fluctuating in a language only they knew. For a moment Natasha was caught off guard but then realized it only made sense that they would have a way to communicate silently. They were assassins; they likely spent countless hours in sniper nests just waiting silently for targets. Of course they would have a way to speak to one another.

“Should we be worried that they’re talking somehow?” Stark asked but it was Clint who shook his head and answered.

“Nah, let ‘em. I can pick up bits and pieces of things I think, can’t be sure, but it seems like right now they’re just checking up on each other. There’s a coupla words in there that are just from reading lips and I’m getting those. Some ASL and RSL in there too but it’s a mix of everything. Best I can figure is they’re both catching each other up to speed on how they got here and what we’ve done with them so far.” He was watching Rogers closely, eyes narrowing as he spelled something out with his fingers and a smirk flashed on his lips for a moment. “The Handler isn’t called Lukin. Rogers is too proud of telling us that for it to be the truth.”

Natasha frowned but didn’t question the statement “He got the name from somewhere. Lukin must be involved in the program somehow, or at least he was at one point.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked thoughtfully at Barnes for a moment before turning away and heading towards the elevator “I’ll look into it.”

They leave the feed up through the night, the conversation between the Soldiers starting to taper off sometime around midnight. They still occasionally gestured to one another but it wasn’t as consistent as it had been at first. They Avengers take rotation watches again except this time it’s Clint who sticks around for nearly all of them, watching the Soldiers intently.

He’s got a tablet that he’s been scrawling notes on whenever the Soldiers converse, writing down the snatches of conversation he can understand. He’s turned his hearing aides almost all the way down to help him focus on trying to decipher the gestures. There’s a period of time that they converse almost entirely in Russian Sign Language, their default if there’s no other gesture he gathers. At first the words don’t make sense.

_“You have one?”_ Rogers signs, raising an eyebrow to show it’s a question. Barnes shrugs slightly and his expression says ‘ _Maybe but unsure’_ Clint notes as much on his tablet. “ _R-O-M-A-N-O-V”_ The spelling of Natasha gets Clint’s attention and he pays closer attention. “ ~~Unknown~~ _me_ C-A-P-T-A-I-N R-O-G-E-R-S” Clint had been crossing out words he couldn’t pick up among phrases and writing the individual finger spelled letters.

Barnes replies with the sign for something being in the past and swipes his hand past his face with an eyebrow raised in a question and Rogers shrugs the same ‘ _Maybe but unsure’_ shrug Barnes had done earlier. ‘Past face’? Clint wonders, what was that supposed to mean? But then he remembers, stealth operatives. They must have tons of old covers and identities. Their best guess was that Steve Rogers was an old cover for him rather than his true identity. He makes a note of the theory but otherwise doesn’t think much into it or the implications. Right now he has to translate, it’ll be someone else’s job to interpret the meaning.

He watches and notates until the Soldiers seem to be content enough to allow themselves to doze, bodies tense but eyes closed and breathing slowed. Clint decides that it’s as good a time as any for him to take his own leave and that Dr. Banner was plenty capable enough to keep an eye on two sleeping assassin’s in escape-proof cages in the most secure location SHIELD had to offer.

He yawns as the elevator arrives and massages at the crick in his neck as the doors open. It’s not empty this time, a bit unusual, but the men who step out are part of SHIELD’s upper division security and Strike team, led by Brock Rumlow if Clint remembers his name correctly. He’s pretty sure they have the credentials to be down here, so he gives them the friendly nod of a coworker and steps into the elevator, yawning again as the doors slide shut.

 ~

Alpha jolts from his rest when the door to his cell slides open and a group of armed men step in. The video feed has ended and the hallway outside the cell is dimly lit. He’s on his feet in an instant, ready to fight until he recognizes them. Alpha had seen them in the HYDRA base they’d been operating out of; accompanying the Owner the one time the Owner had come to see him and Beta.

_They had just come out of cryo, so recently the chill had still been set in his bones as the scientists poked and prodded them with needles and devices to measure their vitals and track the thawing process. He’d been allowed to touch Beta, a small reassuring gesture on his flesh shoulder, something the Handler had come to understand helped keep their minds grounded when a man asked “So it’s true then?”_

_All the eyes in the room looked up to the door where an older man had just entered. He had on an impeccably tailored suit and graying blonde hair. From his place several meters away, Alpha could still make out the wrinkles on his face. The man held himself as though he possessed power but yet he was unfamiliar to Alpha, it didn’t mean they’d never met, mind wipes and all, but generally Alpha could recall men like this one._

_“What’s true sir?” One of the techs asked._

_“About the assets, that they remember each other despite the wipes. Or did you order him to touch the other one?” The man asked, the group of men around him shifting on their feet as though expecting an attack. It made Alpha jittery. What were those men expecting that he was unaware of?_

_“You were told when you purchased the Assets Sir, they are far more effective and successful together than apart.” The Handler spoke up, his voice soothing and familiar, he had been with them for a number of years. Alpha could see the age showing on his face but it was the same Handler as the last thaw and the one before and the one before._

_It was funny how the wiping process worked, how selective it was about what was removed. He always kept his skills and training, the muscle memory honed from years of hard work. He always knew who the Handler was when he was thawed. He never lost the memories of HYDRA as a group or the Red Room or KGB as organizations but didn’t have details about any of them. He always had the name ‘Beta’ when he first woke up and knew instantly when he saw the other Asset that it was Beta. He knew he instinctively wanted to get to Beta and be around Beta and protect Beta. But he didn’t know anything about Beta past his apparent importance._

The cocking of a gun snaps his attention back to the present. He counts six men, all wearing body armor marked with the SHIELD insignia, four of them have assault rifles, two leveled at him already, the other two appear unarmed except that all six have handguns strapped into thigh holsters. The man in front, the apparent leader has an earpiece in and looks Alpha straight in the eyes, unafraid.

" _Winter Soldier Report.”_ He speaks clearly and the report rushes to Alpha’s mind but before he can speak a single word of it he bites his tongue to hold back and say something else, one pro to being captured like this is that the conditioning got easier to override the longer they went without a wipe.

“Are you here to break us out?” Alpha asks, his head cocking slightly with the question.

The man in charge blinks and glances warily at one of the men behind him. “Your Handler sent us to come get you. You failed to arrive at the rendezvous-point. He was worried. You failed your mission.”

Alpha practically bristled in anger, he did not fail. He’d completed his objective perfectly. He’d assisted the Avengers in protecting the city. Just like he’d been ordered to. The city was safe, the extraterrestrials had been repelled, mission a resounding, complete success.

“ _Soldier!”_ The man snaps, “You can explain yourself to Pierce later. We’re leaving. Now.”

He starts to lead the way out of the cell, the other men falling into formation around Alpha as though he’s the one that needs protecting. The hallway is dark, only the emergency lights on. It’s enough to reveal the outlines of unmoving bodies of agents that occasionally litter the floor. They pass empty cells on the way and Alpha frowns. He'd hoped Beta was nearby.

“Designation Beta has been captured by SHIELD as well.” Alpha informs them, waiting for the comments about a change of plans or the call to Handlers for orders on how to proceed but it’s as though they didn’t even hear him, none of them so much as looking at him.

“You still have to retrieve Designation Beta.” He tries again as they reach the elevator, the man speaking quietly into his wrist.

“Asset Alpha secured.” He says and Alpha waits for the rest of the report, something like ‘Retrieving Asset Beta’ or ‘Asset Beta retrieval in progress’ or anything about Beta really. But it doesn’t come. He lowers his wrist and rests his hand on his gun as the elevator doors slide open and he steps inside. He looks at Alpha, not flinching away from the narrowed eyes. “Another team is going for Beta. He’s in a different part of the facility.” The man finally says.

Alpha frowns but steps into the elevator after him, accepting the explanation. There’s no way HYDRA would not want both of it’s Assets back in their control. They were two of the most important things HYDRA had ever developed. They weren’t about to lose one to SHIELD. Alpha turns away from his thoughts and focuses on the briefing on the rest of the escape plan; he’ll see Beta back at the base.


	5. Chapter 5

When the doors to the elevator open to the hallway lit only by emergency lights, Natasha and Clint immediately realize something is very very wrong. Through the flashing lights they can see bodies strewn through the hallway and both have their weapons drawn in an instant. “Go check the security bunker, I’ll check the cells.” Clint says quickly, starting to tread carefully down the hall towards the cells while Natasha heads the other direction.

Clint finds several more bodies and checks the pulse on a few and gets a mix of live but unconscious, and dead. It gives him hope that Bruce might be all right. He’d been left alone on watch, everyone assuming that even should someone get past the layers and layers of security that the Hulk would be challenge enough to get to either assassin.

He finds him slumped against the wall, a very obvious dart stuck in his neck, the veins around it sluggishly pumping with green, either whatever chemical was in the dart or more likely the presence of the Hulk keeping it from spreading too far in Bruce’s bloodstream. If there was one thing to be said about the Hulk serum, it was that it did not take kindly to other chemicals trying to invade.

Banner secured, Clint turned to face the cells. Barnes was exactly where they’d left him, back to the wall and eyes closed as if sleeping. But Rogers, immediately Clint tapped his com and said “Rogers is gone.”

Natasha found the security guards in the bunker in worse state than the ones Clint had found in the halls. All three-security techs were dead, neat bullet holes in their heads. She was starting the camera footage roll back when Clint’s report came. Natasha let out a dismayed sigh but then said “Barnes?”

“Still here, doesn’t seem to even realize something’s up. Looks like he’s asleep.” Came the reply and Natasha’s eyes narrowed. If their employer had come to collect them, why take Rogers but not Barnes? In everything she had heard about the Winter Soldiers, everything she knew about them, it was always as a pair, never one or the other. Why separate them now? Had whoever freed Rogers been unable to get Barnes? It wasn’t like the alarms had tripped or that there had been witnesses to stop them. By all accounts they should have been able to retrieve both. So why just one?

“Something is strange here. Contact Fury and the others. I’m going to go see what I can find out about the employer. Don’t tell Barnes that Rogers is gone, we’ve got him cooperating right now, the last thing we need is to lose that.”

 ~

Natasha returns to the bunker at Clint’s call an hour later. Barnes is awake and glaring at the food that he’d been given. On the floor in front of him are a shiny red apple, a plastic water bottle and two pop-tarts sitting on a paper towel, icing glistening under the artificial lights.

“This is Stark’s idea of a meal? I bet Barnes’ hasn’t eaten anything besides basic ration bars in years.” She commented to Clint, coming to stand beside him and crossing her arms over her chest.

“He had to really argue with the doc to get this far. I think the doc eventually just gave up because she was tired of hearing Stark blab.” Clint said with an amused smile.

They both watched as Barnes eventually picked up the water bottle and examined it closely, opening it with a crack that signified it had been factory sealed and therefore not tampered with. He drank it down with calm efficiency and then moved on to the apple, examining it just as carefully, going so far as to break the thing in half to make sure it to was unchanged.

“I think you should go in there and explain what’s up.” Clint said, eyes not leaving the cell. “He’s gonna start asking ‘bout Rogers soon and I think you’re the one best-suited to telling him.”

“You mean the one he’s least likely to try and snap in half?” She replied with a frown. “Just because we knew each other once doesn’t mean he’ll remember me enough to not attack.”

“Nat, I know you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared!” She hissed.

 “Fine, you’re uneasy. But without Barnes we will not find Rogers again. Whoever broke him out is long gone and didn’t leave a trail for us to find. Everyone who came down here had the clearance and the cameras were down the entire night, we don’t even have a guess on when they might have come in. They knew what they were doing. Barnes doesn’t trust any of us, at all, but you knew him once. You might be able to get something from him the rest of us couldn’t.”

Natasha looked at him and then back at Barnes. He had retreated back to his place along the back wall, eyes firmly glued to the door as if daring someone to enter. The pop-tarts remained untouched on their paper towel.

Clint was right. She was scared. The last time she had seen Barnes, Beta, he had shot her clean through as if she was no more than an obstacle rather than a person. He had barely registered she was a human, let alone remembering who she was. That encounter had terrified her because of how different he was than she had remembered.

She remembered the lessons in hand to hand and on the shooting range. She remembered the days in the compound smoking and playing poker, she and Anya draped across their laps like lazy house pets as if there weren’t two-dozen armed guards stationed around the room. She remembered the nights he woke with traces of memories and names half remembered on his lips. She remembered the times he called her _'Little Sister'_ when he thought she couldn’t hear, pressing kisses to the top of her head while she pretended to be asleep. She remembered the day the program had ended, the guards pulling her out of the room as she desperately tried to help him fight off Alpha, Anya’s glassy eyes staring up at her from the floor.

“If I go in there.” She began slowly. “The mics are turned off. No one hears what is said. You let me do it my way and do not interfere unless he is about to kill me. We do this my way or I don’t set foot in there.”

Clint looked at her with concern but then nodded. “I’ll tell the guys in the booth." 

~

When the door slid open again, Beta was expecting it to be Stark in his tin can again, come to scold him about not eating the sugary crap he’d left on the floor. Instead it was a slim woman,  _Agent Natasha Romanov_ , _Traitor to Russia, Codename: Black Widow_ he recalls from the files he’d been given before the latest mission. But there was something else, a single pulse in the back of his brain, a feeling he had learned meant memory related. He knew her. Or at least had known her.

“Sergeant Barnes, my name is Natasha Romanov”

Alpha had mentioned she used strange names for them, calling him ‘Captain Rogers’. Apparently he must have had his own old cover. Part of him was annoyed that he was a lower rank than Alpha in that scenario but he ignored it, more interested to what a former Russian Red Room girl turned American spy had to say to him.

She switched to Russian after a pause and looked almost nervous as she said “ _you may know me better as designation Delta.”_

Beta looked at her in confusion for a moment, head throbbing. He could swear he could almost feel the neurons trying to make the connections, recall the memories. Understand why the title seemed so familiar, why she seemed so familiar. Finally like a spark, it was there. And Beta screamed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is entirely a flashback and I think my favorite so far

_“These are gifts from the Red Room to our program, to you. Do not break them.” The handler instructed, two women stepping out from behind him. Both were petite and slim and gorgeous but held the same predatory grace that the Soldiers themselves had. The grace of a trained killer. One woman was white-blonde and pale, as though she was made of porcelain. Her eyes were bright crystal blue and her lips full and soft pink. The other was just as pale but her hair fiery red and eyes like emeralds. She looked slightly younger than the blonde perhaps barely out of her teenage years, while the blonde looked to be in her mid-twenties._

_“Gamma will belong to you Alpha.” The Handler said flatly, the blonde stepping forward and smiling sweetly at Alpha. “And Delta yours Beta.” He continued, the red head merely flicked her gemstone gaze to Beta, her lips barely turned up into a coy expression._

_“What is the purpose of this gift?” Alpha asked the Handler, expression flat as he stared down at Gamma._

_“I don’t care.” The Handler said, rolling his eyes. “Fight with them, fuck them, be sweet to them, it doesn’t matter to us. You are not authorized to terminate them.” He added, looking directly at Alpha._

_Gamma took a bold step closer and put her hands on Alpha’s muscled chest, smiling up at him. Alpha looked down at her before abruptly turning on his heel and walking back to the room that had been designated as his. Gamma blinked in surprise and looked at the Handler, unsure. The man shrugged and Gamma gave a heavy sigh before slinking cat-like after Alpha._

_Beta however had remained behind, looking at Delta with one eyebrow raised, silently asking if she planned to use the same maneuver her partner had. She chuckled lightly and shook her head and that only intrigued Beta more. He shrugged and turned to start walking back to his own cot, barely hearing the light footfalls as she fell into step beside him._

_“How old are you?” He asked without preamble as they arrived to his bunkroom. Another cot had been pushed up against his and he frowned realizing they expected him to sleep with the girl._

_“Old enough.” She replied and he quirked his eyebrow again in disbelief. Up close he could see her face was caked in makeup to make her appear older. She couldn’t possibly be more than fourteen._

_She chuckled at the expression on his face and said, “You don’t believe me?”_

_“You are a child.” He said bluntly._

_“They said I was old enough.”_

_“And the other one?” He questioned, wondering offhandedly if Alpha had lost his temper yet with the handsy blonde._

_“Older.” She said, looking around the room._

_“Then why were you chosen for this program if you are so young?”_

_"I earned the honor. I am the top of my class.” She said and despite both of them being trained to not feel it, he could hear the hint of pride in her voice._

_Unlike many others when told that a girl so young was one of the best the Red Room had to offer, he did not doubt or question the validity of the statement. Instead he led her back out to the main room where a large fighting mat was laid out. He stepped to the center and said simply “Show me.”_

_~_

_Slowly over the course of days and weeks they got to know each other, well as much as they could with the women sworn to secrecy and the Assets missing huge chunks of their memories. Once or twice they wondered why more had not come back as typically this much time spent out of cryo would grant them all sorts of things._

_Alpha blamed the women for the lack of progress but without proof he couldn’t do anything about it, he had morals like that. Beta however didn’t see the worry, so what they didn’t have all their memories? They hadn’t in years anyway. At least this time they actually had someone to interact with besides each other. He enjoyed Delta’s company. Though ever since their first meeting he could not bring himself to think of her as anything but a clever little child. She didn’t seem to mind though, seemed perfectly content to learn from him every skill and fighting technique rather than constantly try to seduce him like Gamma did with Alpha. He was a mentor rather than a target._

_The dynamic between Alpha and Gamma was far different than that of Beta and Delta and Delta couldn’t help but think that one day, Anya would take it too far and Alpha would snap her pretty neck like a toy. She had warned the other woman of such a thing at their last mission report to the Handlers but Anya had waved her off and called her a stupid child for thinking such a thing. The Assets followed the orders of the Handlers without question, the Handlers had ordered the women not be harmed therefore she was safe. Alpha’s programming alone was enough to protect her._

_Delta was not so certain. She knew that at least Beta was smarter and more aware than the Handlers gave him credit for. Sure he obeyed orders but sometimes she wondered if it was because the conditioning forced him to or the sense of self-preservation, Alpha was likely the same. And while she was a loyal agent she knew it was always beneficial to have allies loyal to you. She was pretty sure if the opportunity came up, Beta would choose her over HYDRA. Maybe not over Alpha, but over HYDRA for certain. She doubted Anya could say the same about Alpha._

_Anya never saw the calculating, silent conversations between the Assets. The subtle eye movements and lips twitches she couldn’t always translate herself but knew they were about herself and Anya. She’d commented on it one day when she was feeling particularly sassy, sitting on Beta’s lap as they played cards._

_Alpha had been trying to get Beta to tell him what was in her hand and she called him out on it. The startled expression Alpha’s face held was enough to almost make her laugh out loud. She’d quirked an eyebrow in her best imitation of Beta to hide her feelings and a shark-like smirk of amusement had curled onto Alpha’s lips. She read the look he gave her as ‘Touché’ and part of her felt like she’d earned at least a little bit of respect from him that day._

_~_

_“I think we should have names.” She told Beta one night when they lay side by side on their cots, still pushed together, the compound dark around them. He’d had a nightmare and had woken with a startled cry. She always woke on reflex when he did, and usually would pretend to be asleep to let him work through it alone. Tonight however she decided to speak up._

_“What’s the point?” He asked, cynical and jaded against any form of humanization._

_“I dislike calling you Beta in my head. You had a name once. So did I. We can’t remember them now but what is stopping us from choosing new ones?”_

_“The Handlers won’t allow it.” He said bluntly._

_“Then they will not be for them. Just for us.” She said, turning over to face him, their noses only inches apart._

_“And what would you choose Little Sister?” He asked softly, his skin flushed from the shock of his nightmare._

_“I like Natalia. It sounds like a name that a woman deserves.”_

_“And for me, Natalia?” He asked, easily replacing her pet name with her new chosen name._

_“You are supposed to choose for yourself.” She said with a little smile._

_He looked thoughtful for a long moment and if his eyes weren’t open she would have thought he had gone back to sleep._

_“I remember the name James, but something is not right about it.”_

_“It’s too American.”_

_“Maybe I was American once.”_

_“But you are Russian now. I think Yasha would suit you well.”_

_He leaned in to kiss her forehead rather than voice his agreement._

_“Sleep well Natalia.”_

_“Sleep well Yasha.”_

_~_

_And then the day she feared finally came. She was sparring with Yasha, more for fun than for actual training when Anya flew out of the doorway leading to Alpha’s room, her body hitting the floor and rolling a few feet with a grotesque sound of cracking bones. They paused their fight in an instant, she rushing over to check on Anya, the guards around the room watching carefully. Some damage had been expected and allowed, they too must think Anya had just gotten the brunt of one of Alpha’s temper tantrums. He’d been having them more frequently as of late and more than once had gotten into fights with Yasha to let off some steam._

_Natalia helped Anya sit up, ignoring the jibes and ‘I told you so’ that rose up seeing the older woman was topless, her intentions and the resulting failure clear to all. She had nothing to cover Anya up with but looked to Yasha pleadingly, hoping he might take pity on her. He took a step towards the women but at the same moment Alpha came storming out of his room, expression furious._

_“Beta!” He snapped and Yasha fell still, looking on uncertainly as Alpha continued towards where Natalia held Anya. Without a moment of hesitation at the defiant look she gave him, he put one enormous hand around her throat and lifted her away from Anya. She struggled against him but he barely seemed to notice, throwing her aside like a ragdoll. That snapped Yasha out of his trace and he was quick to help her stand._

_“Get behind me.” He muttered softly to her, his metal arm whirring as he pushed her behind him._

_“Let me help.” She insisted but her words were lost under the panicked gasp of breath Anya gave as Alpha lifted her by the throat._

_“Soldat! Stand down!” The voice of the Handlers ordered but Alpha didn’t move._

_“Stand down!” They ordered again, pinpricks of red light appearing across his chest from the scopes of snipers._

_“Alpha!” Yasha tried and his voice was the only one that seemed to draw Alpha’s attention, the man turning his head to look at his partner but not moving otherwise, Anya still squirming in his grip, clawing at his fingers around her throat. Natalia could see the barely there rise and fall of her chest, the panicked breathes of air she was desperately trying to take in._

“They were sent to placate us into submission.” _The language switch caught her off guard. She didn’t know Alpha spoke English. “_ To distract us from trying to regain our memories.” _He sounded so certain and sure of his accusation, as if he’d finally gotten the proof he’d been searching for._

_Natalia felt Yasha’s flesh arm tense and saw the plates shifting. He was considering the words and the implications._

_“_ So what if they were. She doesn’t deserve this. Put her down.” _It shouldn’t have caught her off guard that he spoke English as well as Alpha. They were a matched set; of course he would speak it as well. She thought back to the conversation that had given them their names. Maybe he really had been American once._

_Alpha didn’t move, his gaze flicking back to Anya._ “We were getting too hard to control. They ordered women to keep us busy, keep us docile. I do not like being deceived.” _He said flatly._

“Alpha” _Yasha said again, tone warning. Anya whimpered, Alpha’s grip on her throat tightening._

_“Soldat Stand down, now!” The Handlers interjected and then in an instant several things happened._

_A sickening crack and Anya’s limp body falling to the floor, head lolling at an unnatural angle and eyes glassy. Yasha shoving Natalia backwards harshly as Alpha lunged for her, immediately to be caught across the cheek with a punch from Yasha's metal arm. The agents and Handlers, both the Soldiers and her own, began to bark orders as Natalia jumped to her feet to try and help but was restrained by the guards that lined the rooms. She struggled against them, kicking and shouting to try and break free and help Yasha._

_She had seen the Soldiers fight before, spar to a pin and also till ordered to stop, until both were bloodied and barely standing. They always fought hard but never quite like this. Alpha seemed lost in his fury, more aggressive and bloodthirsty than anyone she’d ever seen. It made her heart race with adrenaline recalling that she was his target, the object of his ire. The guards would have no chance trying to defend her against this raging onslaught, the only thing keeping him from her right now was Yasha, already bloody but showing no signs of slowing._

_The last thing she saw of either Soldier as she was pulled from the room was them falling to their knees as electricity crackled through their bodies. Both peppered by stun bullets that struck them until heavily armored agents could get close enough with stun batons to completely subdue them._

_The next time she saw Yasha, he shot her without even a flash of recognition in his cold, flat eyes._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that any spoken text in italics is another language being spoken, generally Russian.

_“Natalia.”_ Barnes said slowly after the screaming stopped and his breathing steadied somewhat.

She watched him as looked up at her from his hands and knees, chest heaving. _“You’re Natalia.”_ He repeated, more for himself than for her.

“ _And you are Yasha. You knew me once, before they took your memories.”_

“ _Delta_ ” He rasped. _“They called you Delta. But you were Natalia.”_ His fingers were clenched, trying to dig into the solid floor beneath him, the metal ones managing to create tiny fractures.

 _“I’m sorry. I know it hurts, gaining the memories back.”_ She said softly, knowingly, caringly even, crouching down but not getting within striking distance. _“But I really need you to remember me and this is the fastest way. James, I need you to trust me.”_

He let out a small shout of pain that made her flinch, his eyes clenching shut; she did feel bad about this. She’d only been wiped once or twice and it had been horrible to experience regaining those. She could barely even imagine the level of pain he was in after so long and so many wipes. “ _I’m sorry.”_ She repeated, standing up and turning her back to him. _“I’ll come back later when this has passed.”_ She promised, walking to the door and nodding to whoever was on the other side.

Clint was waiting as the door slid open, bow drawn in case Barnes decided to make a run for it. He looked at Natasha warily and then at Barnes but didn’t say anything.

As the door was sliding shut she swore she heard James whisper, _“Thank you, Little Sister.”_

~ 

Alpha spends the trip back to base in silence, teeth grit together behind his lips as his head throbs painfully. It had been long enough now that flashes of actual memories were starting to show themselves to him. Some he recognized as missions, the heft of a rifle in his hands and the feel of Beta’s boot brushing his own as they lay together motionless on a rooftop. But others he wasn’t sure.

He got a glimpse of an alleyway, he on his back and a man over him holding out his hand. _“I had ‘em on the ropes” “I know you did”_ He felt a wheezing rasping cough, heaviness in his lungs, a struggle to take in air until a ‘snap click’ and deep inhale soothed it away. The pinch of a dozen needles and then pain and tingling and bright light and suddenly everything about him stronger. Raucous laughter from a handful of men around a campfire, smiles on their faces and a flask passed between them. A biting winter breeze and a man dangling from a railing, slipping further and further away.

“ _Soldat!”_ A voice snapped and Alpha turned in an instant. He realized the car has stopped and he is the only one left in it, the rest of them already headed into the base.

It was reassuring to be back at the base but also nerve-wracking to be there without Beta. He had never returned alone, granted he’d never been captured and rescued like this before. The Owner surely wouldn’t be pleased, but whatever punishment he came up with couldn’t be much worse than the current pain in his head.

He follows them down and down into the bowels of the warehouse and to the room that currently housed The Chair. Their Handler is waiting and looks slightly confused to see only Alpha but does not comment. The Owner is standing next to him and looks pleased, in sharp contrast to the Handler.

“Winter Soldier report.” The Owner says calmly, no trace of the aggressive snap that Romanov had used to startle him into complying, the Owner knew he would talk. Alpha considered ignoring the order as he had with the men who broke him out but didn’t really see a reason to incite further punishment.

“Asset designation Alpha primary mission success, designation Beta unknown, presumed failure due to capture, current location unknown. Asset status suboptimal but functional.” He sticks to English because the Owner did, despite Russian being his usual language.

“You didn’t find him then?” The Owner asks, quirking an eyebrow with a knowing look on his face.

“Sir?” Alpha said, unsure what the Owner meant.

“Designation Beta. You went into SHIELD’s Headquarters without authorization, managed to get captured and questioned and you still don’t know where Designation Beta is?”

Alpha kept his expression schooled as he revised “Location presumed to be SHIELD sub-basement but unconfirmed.”

The Owner nodded “Good.” He turned to the techs “Prepare the Asset for complete wipe.”

“Where is Beta?” Alpha spoke up, despite knowing it was not his place to ask. The Owner turned slowly to look at him.

“What was that?” He asked, his tone implying that he expected an apology or groveling.

Maybe it was due to the time spent without command, even only apparently a few days, but Alpha didn’t avert his eyes. “I was told Beta was retrieved.”

The Owner frowned and turned to the Handler “Mind your dog Petrov.”

The Handler nodded slightly though something about his expression seemed off. “ _Soldat.”_ He said calmly, the order unspoken. Alpha frowned but found he couldn’t disobey the Handler. He clenched his hands into fists but followed the command, climbing into The Chair and not fighting as the Handler fastened the restraints on his wrists.

He didn’t expect the Handler to lean in and quickly mutter as he slipped in Alpha’s mouth guard, “ _They abandoned Beta. Pierce has decided he has no use for him. They do not have HYDRA’s ideals in mind. You are both the fists of HYDRA, our greatest success,”_ suddenly he was coughing up blood onto Alpha’s chest, his expression one of astonishment.

“I did not take you for a traitor Petrov.” The Owner, Pierce, was saying. Standing next to him was the man who had broken Alpha out, the barrel of his heavily silenced handgun pointed at the Handler’s back.

Alpha fought against the restraints, the metal squealing and protesting but holding firm as Petrov rasped out “ _Hail HYDRA”_ before falling forward across Alpha’s legs, blood soaking through the back of his lab coat. Alpha continued to struggle, snarling around the mouth guard in anger and exertion as he tried to break the shackles holding him down. But they were designed to hold him and Beta down with no way of escape or even accidental break. His current actions were useless. He could barely hear the commands from Pierce over the pounding of blood in his ears from fury and his memories still trying to make themselves known.

The halo was lowered around his head and the voices grew rapider and the pain turned to agony as electricity rushed through him, his snarls turning to screams. Normally he was able to keep quiet but the suddenness of it all caught him enough off guard that his anguish was vocalized. The throbbing ache of the memories was replaced and vastly overshadowed by the lightning racing through him until all he knew was the torment of endless volts of energy.

‘Fight it!’ something in him always said, no matter how many times he experienced it. ‘Fight it, for Him!’ He didn’t know who Him was or why he should fight for him and some part of him refused to give in to the pain but in the end he was always tired of fighting, tired of hurting, tired of torment.

Pierce watched with his face unreadable until Rogers finally passed out, turning to a tech. “As far as I’m concerned, the other one is gone. I don’t want this one to know he ever even existed. Wipe him a dozen more times if that’s what it takes. But I’m putting it in the record that there was only ever one Winter Soldier.”

The man looked at Pierce in disbelief for a moment before slowly nodding. “Yes sir.”

Pierce turned to address the room “Clear this place out the moment you’re done. Relocate everything back to DC, I want no trace of it ever being here. SHIELD will eventually find this place one way or another, I don’t want them to have a way to track us further.”


	8. Chapter 8

“So what the hell did you say to him to cause that sort of reaction?” Tony asked Natasha the moment the door to the cell sealed shut. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his casual pose. “Must’ve been something pretty big to make him yell like that.”

“It can be quite painful regaining memories.” She replied, expression neutral.

“Nat.” Clint said quietly. “If it’s important to this op, to this whole thing. We need to know.”

It was just the three of them right now,Fury was off trying to figure out how someone had gotten in completely undetected and Banner was given the day off to let the drugs work their way through his system because no one really wanted a doped up Hulk hanging around.   Clint knew most of her past with the Red Room and that it had affiliations with HYDRA but she had never told anything of her time with the Winter Soldier program.

She frowned at him but looked at Stark “You’d better sit down, this might take a while.”

She started off explaining how she had come to join the Red Room and what it truly was and entailed. Clint had heard this all before but he still listened. She’d expected Stark to interject or be rude or sarcastic about it all but he stayed respectfully silent, seemingly understanding that this was probably not a story most people knew and he likely wouldn’t get again.

Natasha turned to look at Barnes as she said “When I was fourteen the headmistress assigned me to a special mission because I was the top of my class. Me and another, much older agent were given the honor of working with HYDRA and their Winter Soldier program.”

“I thought you said” Stark began, finally deciding to give his two-cents. Clint flicked his shoulder and gave him a look. ‘Not now’ it said.

“Our purpose was to keep the Soldiers distracted, entertained, busy, anything to keep them from thinking about the memories they didn’t have. Apparently the technology HYDRA used for the mind-wipes wasn’t working as well as it once did, and they seemed to think that part of the problem were the Soldiers actively trying to recall the memories. The solution was throwing the two of us in the mix. Codenamed: designation Gamma and designation Delta.” She gestured to herself.

“Gamma was partnered with Rogers, they figured it would be better to give an older, more experienced agent to the more volatile of the Soldiers. I was partnered with Barnes. Neither HYDRA or the Red Room really cared what we did to keep them distracted, Gamma, Anya, decided the direct approach of seducing him would work best.”

Clint scoffed a laugh and muttered “Bet that went over well.”

“I was trained to do the same.” She continued and both men straightened up a bit.

“But you said you were” Tony started and Natasha looked at him flatly.

“They didn’t care, as long as I was capable. Barnes wasn’t comfortable with it either, refused to treat me as anything other than a child once he realized I wasn’t the twenty-something the Red Room tried to present me as. Instead we fell into the role of instructor and student. He was more experienced and skilled than me obviously so I took the opportunity to learn from him. I didn’t speak with Anya much about our mission, only during the reports to the Handlers. The Soldiers didn’t know why we were there of course; they were told we were a gift from the Red Room to HYDRA. Rogers never really bought it, and there were times where I think we all let ourselves fall into comfortable roles of compliance but there was something about him that was always, plotting. Like he was three steps ahead of everyone else and only Barnes could tell what he was thinking.”

“You think he was trying to out think HYDRA?” Tony asked when she paused for a minute to consider her next words.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. He was known for being a hell of strategist and that’s not a talent that just goes away. He got in here without much issue and he’s one of the most recognizable heroes in American history. Guys smart.”

“He’s the one that worries me. I watched the conditioning and obedience fade from both of them. Barnes got, better. He would act more human; occasionally smile, he dreamt of his childhood. Given enough time he probably could have gotten his memories back. His programming breaks down predictably. He did a good job of hiding it though. He knew that HYDRA wouldn’t be happy about it. He acted differently when it was just us.”

She looked at Barnes in his cell; muscles still tense and teeth grit.

“Rogers was a different story. We all knew that he had a temper, and Anya had been warned over and over again not to provoke him. But she was confident that the orders from the Handlers were enough to keep us safe. That the conditioning would keep her safe from his temper.”

“But when the conditioning started to break down…” Clint said with a sigh having an idea of where the story was heading.

“I never found out exactly what happened, they wouldn’t tell me. I assume she tried a more direct approach of seducing him and he didn’t take it well.” She felt the phantom feeling of a hand around her throat. “He snapped her neck like a twig, would have done the same to me if Barnes hadn’t stepped in. The Soldiers fought, the agents dragged me from the room and that was the last I saw of either of them until Barnes shot through me to assassinate a target in Odessa.”

“Shit.” Tony said quietly.

“But I don’t know the whole story, either of theirs. I only knew them for those couple of months and heard the rumors of what happened after. I doubt anyone alive even knows how they went from war heroes to assassins. I doubt they even know anymore.”

Barnes seemed to be recovering now, chest no longer heaving and expression no longer pinched in pain.

“Then I guess you focus on what you can do and me ‘n Legolas will fill the rest of what we can.” Tony said, looking like he wanted to give some sort of reassuring gesture but unsure what, hand hovering awkwardly in the air until he turned to walk towards the elevator “J, gimme everything you got on Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, dig into dads files if you have to.”

“You gonna be okay?” Clint asked, pulling her into a loose hug once Tony had disappeared into the elevator.

“You know me.” She said giving him a weak smile.

“If you’re going back in there I’m going to stick around.”

“He won’t hurt me. Not now that he knows who I am.” She assured him.

“Sorry I’m not willing to leave you alone with a mentally unstable super-assassin whose last memory of you was his partner trying to murder you.”

“I’m a big girl Barton, I don’t need someone to take care of me.” She said with a teasing smile.

“You signed up for me to worry about you the moment you agreed to follow me to SHIELD. And I kinda have a stake in this now that I’ve got experience with the whole mind-control thing. Maybe that’s what we do; give him some good old cognitive recalibration.” He teased and she rolled her eyes.

“If only decades of conditioning and brainwashing were that easy to undo.”

 “Hey you never know, it worked against a glowing rock in a pointy stick from outer-space. Who knows what else can be solved by hitting it really hard?”

_~_

_“You didn’t tell Alpha.”_ He said when she entered the cell again.

“No.” She replied simply. It seemed like the worst of the pain had passed at least for now.

“ _I will tell him.”_ The tone held no room for compromise. He was ready to argue for the chance to discuss this with Rogers.

“You can’t.” She finally said after a moment of trying to figure out how to tell him what had happened. His eyes narrowed and she had to force herself to keep from taking a step back and away from him.

In one smooth motion he was on his feet and towering over her, despite being dressed only in scrubs, his long hair greasy and unkempt, his sheer bulk was intimidating.

_“Delta.”_ He warned and suddenly she was a teenager again, petulantly refusing to get up off the mat and make another attempt at whatever technique he was trying to teach her. This time she did take a step back and felt her heartbeat quicken.

Clint was under clear orders not to step in unless her life was at stake but as James, her Yasha, loomed over her, metal arms glinting under the harsh lights, she wished she hadn’t given those instructions.

She met his eyes with as much confidence as she could muster and watched as his own softened just slightly. “Why?” He asked, finally switching to English. “He needs to know.”

“That’s why we need your help.” She said, glad the tense moment had passed. “Someone broke him out” He frowned “we assumed it was whomever you’re working for but they” She faltered again, “they left you behind.”

He said nothing for a long moment, gaze turned down thoughtfully before his brows knit together and he let out a groan of pain.

“ _I’m afraid no one will be coming, they have left you behind Sergeant.” A short older man wearing a labcoat was bragging, beady eyes trained on him._

_“You assholes are even dumber than we thought if you think for a second someone ain’t gonna bust down that door and get me outta here!” Beta realized he was the one lying on the table, the words his own._

_“I have to disagree with that sentiment, we have intercepted communications that state the complete loss of the 107 th division as prisoners of war. How unfortunate.” The man said, voice dripping in morbid amusement. “I suppose that gives me plenty of test subjects to work with.” He continued, holding up a syringe with a glistening needle. “Since I have you already, let us begin.” _

“Barnes!” A woman’s voice brought him out of his head. He was on his knees again, his flesh hand pressed to his forehead and the metal one on the floor, keeping him upright.

“Are you with me Yasha?” The woman said again and he forced himself to look at her.

“Fucking hurts.” He scowled and the woman had the audacity to smile sadly. His scowl deepened and he forced himself to think through the pounding to what she had been saying. “You want information.”

“We want to bring Rogers, Alpha back. You’re the only one who knows where to find him.” She explained. “We want to help him, to help both of you. SHIELD helped me and I know they can help you both.”

He looked at her warily. “Why should I trust you?”

The question seemed to catch her by surprise. “He was right wasn’t he? Back then? About what your purpose actually was?” He continued and her lips turned down into a small frown.

“It’s different now. I want to help you regain your memories.”

“Why?” He interrupted. “We are threats to the world. Why not kill us? Why not kill me and rid both HYDRA and the world of me?”

“Because neither of you deserve this. You deserve the chance to come home from the war you gave your life up to help win. You don’t deserve someone forcing you to be their puppet. Because until the moment comes that I can’t help you, I will keep trying. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

He was still suspicious, decades of programming preventing him from so easily trusting, let alone a woman who had deceived him in the past. But they wanted to find Alpha and allegedly help them both get rid of the haziness for good. No more mind-wipes, no more cryo, no more punishment, their lives their own. And if he and Alpha didn’t agree with what SHIELD wanted to do, they could always escape themselves and disappear, work through the memories themselves. But he would not leave Alpha behind.

“Fine, but I am the one who explains. He won’t listen to anyone else.”


	9. Chapter 9

Natalia asks him about the current mission, what he remembers from waking from cryo to now. To tell his side of the story. It doesn’t hurt as much as remembering the past does. In fact it barely hurts at all, the thoughts and memories of waking up in the warehouse so fresh in his head that the only thing that hurts is when he accidentally triggers a much older memory during his explanation, which was minor enough that it passed quickly.

“Alpha was to keep you distracted by helping fight back the invasion. Keep the attention away from the Tower. I was ordered to retrieve the Tesseract with whatever means necessary. The intelligence I received did not mention many of the security systems and I had to spend time disarming them. By the time I got the containment device,” he trailed off and looked up at her “you know the rest.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything for a moment, looking thoughtful. A strange, reverberating knock broke the silence and both of them turned to see the door slide open.

“What do you think you’re doing Stark?” She was quick to ask, putting herself directly between them.

Stark wasn’t wearing the Iron Man suit this time around, instead dressed in a normal business suit, the tie loose around his neck. He had a cup of coffee in one hand, a water bottle in the other and a thick manila folder under one arm. “You’ve been in here a while Red, thought you and Terminator could use a drink. Also thought I’d drop this off.” He tossed the water bottle to Barnes, who caught it with his flesh hand, then handed the folder to Natalia. She leafed through it for a moment and looked back at Stark.

“I’ll admit, I’m impressed.” She turned to Barnes and handed him the folder. “We’ll leave you alone to read through this. It’s everything we, Tony, was able to find about you.”

Barnes looked at them uncertainly. This file was something very easy to fake, especially for a man who had no recollection of who he actually was and what he had done. They could have filled it with all kinds of nonsense and lies to make him comply with them.

“All comes straight from the mouths of historians, military records, and my dear old dads personal files to name a few sources. You know you guys were good friends? All three of you, tall, blonde and terrifying included? Used to talk about you guys when I was a kid. But it’s all in the past hmm, so I’m gonna head out, have fun with your trip down memory lane.” Stark gave a mock salute as he headed towards the door.

Natalia gave him a small secret smile but he couldn’t help notice her emerald eyes were filled with pity. They both knew this was going to be painful, both mentally and emotionally. But he couldn’t say he wasn’t curious, even if it was all a lie, he was intrigued to see what they might have come up with. It was a win win situation for him, either it was fake and he’d be amused or it was true and he might get some insight on his life.

The door slid shut and Beta stared at it for a long moment before settling down in his spot against the wall. He looked at the folder, it was inconspicuous, just a plan tan folder filled with page after page, almost a half an inch thick. Everything about him and it could be condensed to a file just a half an inch thick. This likely didn’t even include the missions he’d done for HYDRA or anything along those lines. Natalia acted and spoke as though he had been someone before HYRDA, before the Winter Soldier. It may be true, it may not be. Memory-wipes made determining the truth about the past a little tricky.

He opened the folder and at the very top of the stack was a familiar sight. A profile, photo included, stamped with the seal of the US military. He’d seen dozens, maybe hundreds of profiles just like this in his life he figured, just a few days prior he’d seen one for every member of the Avengers. Except this one was his. The man in the photo had his face. His hair was shorter and hidden under the cap of a military uniform and he looked a little bit younger but there was no mistaking that it was him.

‘Barnes, James Buchanan’ it read across the top in neat type. ‘Born 10 March, 1917’.

~

“I’ve already got the location of the warehouse.” Tony said, tapping and swiping at his Starkpad.

“We’ll need backup if we go in there. Sounds like it’s a decent sized operation.” Clint pointed out. “I’ll get a strike team together.”

“No.” Natasha said, looking thoughtfully at the cell that had been Rogers’. She glanced up at the corner of the hallway where a security camera was embedded in the wall; the only tell it was there the glint of light off the lens. She turned to Clint and said “Budapest”

Clint looked at her for a moment before nodding slightly. “Tony, I ever tell you bout the time me and Nat did Budapest?” His tone was casual as he nonchalantly directed the billionaire towards the elevator.

Natasha turned back towards Barnes’, watching as he opened the folder, his eyebrows furrowing as he read the first page.

_“That hurt!” She protested. “You’re not supposed to hurt me Beta!”_

_"_ _Do not trust anyone little spider. Not even your teachers. There is no one in this world that you can trust beside yourself. Now get up and try again.” He ordered, twirling the knife in his flesh hand._

_She got into her stance unsteadily, arms bleeding sluggishly from the cuts that littered them. She had been the one to ask Beta to teach her to disarm someone of his skill level. She had asked for him to not hold back. She had asked for this. It didn’t mean she liked the feeling of the knife against her skin or the stinging pain of open cuts._

_“But you trust Alpha don’t you?” She argued and for a moment his tense stance loosened and she realized she had an opening. “If I am not supposed to trust anyone why do you trust him?” She asked again, slowly beginning to circle him to try and flank from the side._

_“I do not know.” He said, eyes sharp as they followed her path without moving a muscle. “It is in my programming to trust Alpha. He is Alpha and I am Beta. The programming says we are a pair.” He argued._

_“But why do you follow him?”_

_Beta stumbled a little on his feet, expression suddenly pinched in confusion. She took her chance and rushed him, kicking the knife from his hand. It clattered to the floor far easier than she expected and she looked at him for an explanation but he didn’t even seem to notice._

_She jumped when he clutched at his head, flesh fingers digging into his skin and a groan of pain escaping his lips. “Beta?” She asked, unsure what came over him but too cautious to approach._

_He blinked at her owlishly and then looked at the ground._ “The little guy from Brooklyn, I’m following him.” _She heard him mutter._

_“Beta?” She asked again, picking up the knife and holding it out to him. He looked at her unseeingly for a long moment but then looked at the knife and then took it from her hand._

_“Again.”_

When Natasha left the SHIELD headquarters she had a set of coded coordinates waiting for her on her phone, courtesy of Clint. They led her to the ruins of what had been Stark Tower, only the ‘A’ left hanging across the front. They were waiting for her in communal floor where they had captured Loki, the floor still dented and crushed in places from where the Hulk had intervened.

“So spy twins, any reason you dragged us all the way here instead of having this chat in the safety of the super secret sub basement of the most secret intelligence agency the world has to offer?”

“We can’t trust anyone beside ourselves right now. Someone with full clearance got down there and broke Rogers out. Someone on the inside.” Natasha replied, pacing the floor.

“Budapest is a code, means find a secure location, mission compromised. A get the fuck out asap in laymen’s terms.” Clint explained. “Things aren’t quite FUBAR yet but they might get there quick if we aren’t careful.”

“There is a short list of people who have the clearance to get down to those detention levels, even we didn’t have it until this op and we’re up there in SHIELD clearance. No one broke in or hacked through security. Someone with clearance went down there, or at least was part of a team that did. It may have been unwilling but someone on the inside helped HYDRA break Rogers out. Until we know for sure who it was and why they did it, I don’t want to risk them catching onto us. So until then, we’re on our own.”

“Okay then, two super-assassin spies, one with a killer roundhouse kick and the other with remarkable trigonometric skills and one genius with a incredibly high-tech robotic suit of armor against an entire Nazi organization. I’ve bet against worse odds in Vegas and won.” Tony shrugged, turning on his heel and looking out the shattered window.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes Sir?”

“Get Mark 7 version two up to the launch bay will you? It’s time for a field test.”


	10. Chapter 10

Clint heads back to headquarters, picking Bruce up along the way and informing him of what happened while he was asleep.

“You guys never slow down do you? That a spy thing?”

“Something like that.” Clint chuckled.

He agrees to stay behind and play insider, also keeping an eye on Barnes. Despite doubts that anyone would come back to try and break him out, it was better to be safe and have a set of eyes on him. Besides, the Hulk wasn’t quite the best suited for stealth missions like this one.

Clint rendezvoused with Tony and Natasha back at Stark tower, having switched to an incredibly nondescript sedan.

“Bruce is all caught up and agrees that this needs to stay quiet. He’ll keep an eye out for anything strange at HQ.”

“Good, lets get going then wonder twins, Nazis’ aren’t gonna stop themselves.”

It’s dark by the time they arrive at the warehouse. The building is old and rusting, vines and weeds sprouting through the concrete floor. It was unassuming; nothing about it screamed secret evil bad guy hideout. But then again, most bad guy hideouts that Tony had come across were not usually labeled with neon lights declaring their purpose.

“Jarvis, scan for life signs.” Tony instructed, lifting into the air to fly above the building.

Tony’s HUD filled with outlines of the structure, infrared and x-ray merging together. He saw that while there are several more rooms well beneath the ground, there were no heat signatures larger than a pigeon or a rat. If this was really the place as Barnes said it was, the bad guys were not home.

“Good news and bad news, spies who loved me.” He said over the com. “No ones home that will shoot at us but its probably because they’ve cleared out. There are rooms below ground level, might have some clues to where they headed.” He offered.

They entered together and as he thought, it was completely empty besides a few pigeons that scattered under the flashlights from his suit. Both Natasha and Clint had their weapons at the ready even with the lack of enemies.

“This way.” Tony said, leading them to the service staircase. The door wasn’t nearly as rusty or worn as the rest of the building, a clear sign of recent use. The further they went down the cleaner things got. The railings had rust in places and grime in others but the floors were mostly clear of dust and debris. Finally at the very bottom was a large steel door, sealed shut.

All it took was a few well-placed repulsor blasts and the door fell from its hinges into the room beyond. The door kicked up a cloud of dust that quickly settled, the small amount a sign that the place had only been empty a few days. The light switch in this room even worked still. “Generators must be running on the remaining power.” Tony commented, faceplate flipping up.

The room had all the makings of a base quickly abandoned, rows of empty filing cabinets and marks on the floor where computers had been. The thing most out of place however was the large metal frame bolted to the floor in the center of the room. Whatever had been in the frame had been removed but whatever it housed must have been quite large. Metal arms bent up around it like the legs of a spider and the ends of cut wires dangled from some of the arms, as if someone had just ripped whatever had been attached off without concern for damage.

They split up to investigate, Tony scanning the metal armatures and Clint and Natasha rifling through the filing cabinets for any sign of information.

“Empty.” Natasha declared with a sigh of frustration, closing the last drawer on the cabinet she was checking.

“Nothing here either, they cleared this place out good. Not sure why they didn’t take that monstrosity though.” Clint commented.

“Couldn’t move it I bet, it’s bolted into the concrete. Meant to stand up to some pretty strong force if I had to guess. The wires are pretty high voltage, whatever was here needed a hell of a lot of power to do what ever it did. I’ll have Jarvis do some more in-depth thinking back at the lab. Actually Mr. Tall dark and owner of metal arm could probably tell us what this thing was. It’s great having one of the bad guys on our side for once.”

Natasha frowned at Tony but let the comment go, she’d figured that his way of working through things was thinking out loud and the comments were his way of coping. There were worse things to deal with when working with a team, she could handle his commentary.

“Lets just get back, I’m sure someone has noticed we’ve been gone by now.” Clint said, closing the last drawer of the filing cabinet. “’Sides, this place is giving me the creeps.”

~

Beta, no, James, his name was James, allowed himself to fall asleep completely for the first time since he’d woken up here, since he’d woken up from cryo even, or been woken for that matter. The sharp spiking pains of memories had faded to a constant throbbing ache encompassing his entire brain. As if his mind had finally accepted that the memories were coming back and decided for self-preservation reasons that debilitating instances of pain weren’t all that practical.

As much as he wanted to keep reading, to keep learning more about himself, there was only so much self-inflicted pain he was willing to endure. For once there was not someone else flipping the switch or pushing the button that sent him into agony, it was all entirely him and his decision. He got to decide that this was enough suffering for now and what a novel feeling that was. To be able to say stop and have someone listen.

It could have been hours or days since they’d given him the folder, he’d lost track of time between the unchanging nature of the cell and the somewhat random blackouts and flashbacks.

The names Dugan, Timothy and Jones, Gabe had appeared in his papers when the 107th was first mentioned and he was sure he’d passed out from the surge of memories involving them. The names of the camp where he’d done Basic granted memories of those grueling weeks and a scan of a handwritten letter addressed to one Rebecca Barnes had granted hazy memories of a sister, or was it mother? He wasn’t sure yet. The memory that confused him the most however was that of an argument revolving around the draft notice with his name stamped in neat print across the top.

He had been arguing, shouting with a man nearly a foot shorter than him and skinny as a rail. His clothes hung loosely on his frame as if they were two sizes too big and his hair was a dull shade of blonde. The strangest part however was the striking resemblance the younger man bore to Alpha. As if this man was the Soldiers younger twin. Of course ~~Beta~~ , James knew better. Or did he?

_“Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, best friends since they met on the schoolyard?”_ Stark had said. If these were truly his memories and he had been friends with Steve Rogers, who according to the people here was Alpha, then the young blonde man wasn’t Alpha’s brother. It was Alpha himself.

That couldn’t possibly be right. The man in the memory was tiny and frail looking; it looked like a strong wind might knock him over. Alpha was strong and tall and broad, an impassable wall of muscle. So caught up in his confusion, he barely even noticed the words that had been said, something about him, James, getting drafted and ~~Alpha~~ , ~~young Alpha~~ , ~~not Alpha~~ , Rogers, yes Rogers would work, being mad about it. But he wasn’t mad that James had been drafted, he was mad that he himself hadn’t been.

_“It’s not fair Buck! I should be the one not you! You got your ma and the girls, you can’t be off somewhere in Europe.”_

_“You know it’s random Stevie, just the luck of the draw. That’s the whole point of it. And you ain’t mad because I gotta stay with the girls and ma, you’re mad cause it ain’t you. I know you got rejected cause of”_

_“I know! But just because I have some health problems doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to fight. I want to do my part!”_

_“Steve, war would kill you. Even if you survive the guns, your body just can’t take it, you know that.”_

What kind of stupid idiot wants to join a war? That kid would have gotten himself killed if he’d even tried to start a fight looking that small. How could he possibly survive anything?

It was after the memories of Europe and being there without Rogers started that James decided it was time for a break. Something in his gut told him that whatever came next in the story of his time, as a soldier wasn’t going to be pleasant.

He left the folder open and pushed it aside, shifted his metal arm to defense position just in case, and settled against the wall. The room was bright and the floor uncomfortable but he was actually tired for the first time in a long while that he could remember. It wasn’t hard to close his eyes and force the thoughts from his head, letting his breathing steady, as if waiting for the chance to make a kill, silent and calm. His heart slowed and muscles relaxed and then Beta fell asleep.


	11. Update (4/18/2019)

As much as it frustrates me to say it, this fic is officially on LONG-TERM HIATUS.

I had two more chapters written, but never had time to edit or post them due to personal life stuff and then in December my old computer died and took all of my files to the grave with it, including everything I had ever written. While I still have the ideas that I hadn't written in my head, I just couldn't bring myself to rewrite the chapters and therefore keep moving on with this story. I am not pronouncing it abandoned, at least not yet. I still like this idea and the plot I had come up with but due to my interest moving on and just being disappointed in the loss of my data, it will probably be a while before I update this.

There's a chance that after Endgame my interest in writing for the Marvel fandom will be renewed but right now I am firmly in other fandoms as well as working on original projects so my focus is not here any longer.

Apologies to everyone who is following this story and perhaps see you again later.

-Selene


End file.
